Huddersfield Town, the famous old ­football name, have suffered stuttering ­fortunes in recent times, yet their Galpharm Stadium remains a landmark, 15 years since its inspirational design became a newly built symbol of hope after the wreckage of Hillsborough. Now, though, an awkward row has blown up over the stadium's ownership, a story with not so life-enhancing themes: a tale of ­insolvency, share transfers, property development and money.

When it opened, as a "community ­stadium" in 1994, the ownership structure was pioneering, too. A company was set up to run it, Kirklees Stadium Development Limited, owned 40% by the local council that underwrote the building costs, 40% by the football club who gave up battered old Leeds Road, 20% by Huddersfield Giants rugby league club, who left their historic Fartown ground. Each club pays rent according to an agreed formula – Town, with bigger crowds and more games, pay more than the Giants – which goes towards the stadium's upkeep. The parties would share profits if any ever came back.

"I think of it as a typical Yorkshire ­common-sense deal," says Paul Fletcher, who as Town's chief executive was instrumental in the project, which secured £11m grants and embraced the ambition, embodied by the soaring roof trusses, of architects HOK. Fletcher, now Burnley's chief executive, relishes telling how REM were signed to launch the stadium and the band's tour posters that year listed, among their venues Paris, Milan, Munich, Huddersfield.

The plan was to launch Town into a Premier League future but after serious overspending on wages under the manager Steve Bruce, funded by Barry Rubery, a local businessman, the Terriers missed out on promotion in 2000. Rubery called a halt at £12.5m spent, Town collapsed into administration in March 2003 and were relegated to the bottom division two months later.

The club was finally bought by Ken Davy, now 67, who had sold his financial services firm, DBS Management, in 2001. The Giants had also been in administration and Davy owned that club too. He says he became "hooked on rugby league," on the "integrity and honesty" of the players. He believes sports clubs are vitally important to the community, so he bought Town only reluctantly, to save them and to safeguard the stadium.

Town's administrator, David Acland of Begbies Traynor, says there were no solid offers other than Davy's and that, with debts of more than £18m, the club was as hopeless a case as he had seen. Acland found the only things of any value were in the trophy cabinet, memorabilia mostly from the 1924-26 glory years, when Town won three successive League championships, the first two under Herbert Chapman before he left to join Arsenal.

Davy paid out £1.5m in cash, mostly lavish wages owed on contracts to former players, which he still describes as "obscene", and he has since loaned money to pick up the club's losses, a total investment he puts at £3.5m. "That's more than £13,000 every week; almost £2,000 a day," he says, "including Sundays."

Last April Davy was joined as co-owner by Dean Hoyle, 41, owner of the Card Factory chain and a lifelong Town fan, who bought new shares for 40% of the club. He and Davy have shared the club's losses this season and Hoyle also spent around £750,000 on new signings including Anthony Pilkington from Stockport County and Lionel Ainsworth from Watford, although the manager, Lee Clark, could not ultimately raise his team into the play-offs.

Hoyle will shortly take over 70% of the club, for what Davy describes as "a modest payment" for the shares which will give him control, but – and here is the source of discontent – Davy himself will keep the club's 40% ownership of the stadium. Neither Town nor the Giants any longer own their original shares; Davy does. He transferred Town's 40% and the Giants' 20% to his own company, Huddersfield Sporting Pride, after he took each club over.

"That was not at all how it was envisaged when it was set up," says Fletcher. "It was always intended to belong to the two clubs and the council, in those joint proportions. We believed it was a groundbreaking partnership, which would serve both clubs and the community."

Davy says he wanted the stadium shares to be owned by his company to "protect the clubs from the stadium's debts". He believes that Acland, the administrator, transferred the shares directly to Davy's company for £2, although Acland's memory is that he sold the club complete with the shares. Whichever way it was, Acland did not consider the shares worth anything, because the stadium was owed so much money in rent, ran at a loss and would have been insolvent itself if the football clubhad gone bust.

Supporters who have taken a keen interest in this affair then discovered that in the same year, 2003, as their club's 40% share was transferred for £2, Davy valued the stadium, in the accounts of Huddersfield Sporting Pride, at £15m. Davy describes that as "an arbitrary valuation, the figure the directors chose to put on it", to help facilitate the ultimately ill-fated merger between Sheffield Eagles rugby league club and the Giants.

Of the £2 paid for Town's 40%, he says: "The crucial point is that the administrator valued the shares at nought. I cannot be accused of underpaying." The facts now are clear: the landmark Galpharm Stadium is owned 40% by the local council, 60% by Ken Davy. He is not going to restore Town's original 40%; he has made it "absolutely crystal clear" to Hoyle that he is not prepared to sell the shares.

Concern among some fans has grown to serious discontent since plans for a major development, "HD-One", were launched last year for the 54 acres around the ground to create a "premier destination" including ski slope, bowling alley, hotel, offices, restaurants and bars. KSDL owns all the land and is in line to make a profit if the scheme, recession permitting, reaches fruition. None of these profits will go to the football club, 60% will belong to Davy. He says that KSDL, although it owns all the land, is a minority partner in the scheme, so profits will not be vast. Asked whether he should be entitled to make the money, he says: "Having taken the risks of millions of pounds on rescuing the club, underwriting elements of the stadium, having a football and rugby club which both lose money, then if there is an ultimate profit, I'll be glad of it."

Marcus Middleton, chairman of the Huddersfield Town Supporters Association, seriously disagrees: "Our club gave up its lease on Leeds Road, and for that received 40% of the community stadium. Ethically, those shares belong to the club, which supporters have kept going, and which is not there to make money for businessmen. Ken Davy took the club on and if he were to restore the shares to the club, by selling them to Dean Hoyle – even making some profit – we would thank him very much. But for him to make vast profits from developing the stadium site, with no benefit coming to Huddersfield Town – that, surely, cannot be right."

Davy, exasperated with the criticism, is standing firm. "It is not inconceivable that, if everything went wonderfully, we might make a couple of million profit," he acknowledges. "I think that would be scant reward for the risks that have been taken. And in no sense could be considered unreasonable."